The five-day-old cub was reportedly heard screaming before it fell from its mother Ai Bang, who had just breastfed it, according to AP.

Only a few days ago, the tiny pink panda was seen suckling on a milk bottle in what appeared to be a healthy start.

The mother carefully tended to the cub over the course of the five days and gently placed it in her mouth to carry.

The nine-year-old adult giant panda licked her cub at a breeding center in southwest China’s Chengdu, where it appeared to be in good form.

Vets confirmed that its organs had suffered from no abnormalities following an autopsy and staff at the facility said there had been nothing unusual in terms of its body temperature, feces and diet in the first four days of its birth.

The breeding center said sudden death is very rare with pandas bred in captivity and has some similarities with SIDS among humans. SIDS occurs when a healthy baby dies suddenly and unexpectedly while sleeping.

SIDS made headlines in a human context this week, when new research from the University of Bristol said the age-old method of swaddling a baby in a cloth could be linked to the syndrome.

Scientists said that a baby wrapped in the wrong way can suffer breathing problems when sleeping on its side or stomach and risk death.